How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

You’re probably familiar with the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are trying to present or explain complex information.

Using graphs and charts is great for breaking up technical or boring information, and making technical data a lot easier to grasp.

You can present data using tables, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with numbers, percentages or relationships easily, then charts and graphs allow you to present data in a meaningful and intelligent manner that can be quickly processed.

Graphs and charts help you present complex data so your audience can more easily understand it!

Need to add charts or graphs to WordPress? This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to use WP Visualizer – a simple, easy to use and powerful plugin for WordPress that allows you to create, manage and embed appealing charts into your WordPress posts and pages that:

• Your site visitors can interact with
• Allows you to upload data from your hard drive or a web-based data source
• Is fully responsive for mobile device users

If you are displaying visual data like pie charts, comparison graphs or trending graphs that contain static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into .jpg and .png files and then simply insert your files and an image into your post or page.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to create interactive bar charts and pie graphs in WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a plugin for WordPress users that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create great-looking and dynamic charts and graphs, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updatable data.

Visualizer – WP Plugin

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin from your WP dashboard (we explain how to do this a little further down the page), or download the Visualizer plugin here:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that lets you create, manage and embed mobile-responsive graphs and charts into your WordPress posts and pages with just a few mouse clicks.

WordPress Visualizer uses Google Visualization API to render charts, which support cross-browser compatibility (adopting VML for older IE versions) and cross-platform portability to iOS and new Android releases, and are based on pure HTML5/SVG technology (adopting VML for old IE versions), so no extra addons are required.

Visualizer also contains a variety of charts optimized for all your data visualization needs, including:

• Line chart
• Area chart
• Bar chart
• Column chart
• Pie chart
• Geo chart
• Gauge chart
• Candlestick chart
• Scatter chart

Visualizer is a flexible and customizable plugin, allowing you to use Google Chart Tools with their default setting, or configure an extensive set of options to match your site’s design. Various options are available for each chart that let you further customize their look and feel.

Additionally, charts are rendered using HTML5/SVG technology to provide cross-browser compatibility (including VML for older IE versions) and cross platform portability to iPhones, iPads and Android devices. Your web visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of any additional software.

Plugin Installation

From your WP dashboard, select Plugins > Add New from the dashboard menu …

In the Add Plugins page type in “visualizer” into the search field and click enter …

Locate Visualizer in the search results section and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to continue …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins section …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

You can get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by selecting Media > Visualizer Library from the main menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …

After installing the plugin, the library section will be empty.

The next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to display in your posts and pages.

Plugin Configuration

To add a new graph or chart to the Visualizer library, click on ‘Add New’ …

A visual gallery displaying all of the default types of charts available will come up on your screen.

Select the graph or chart type you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …

The graph/chart type will pop up in a lightbox.

The next step is to upload a CSV file with the data you would like your chart or graph to be populated with …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• The first row contains your column headings.
• The second row includes the series type (e.g. string, date, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data correctly …

If you are unsure about how to format your data CSV, just use the sample file supplied with the plugin.

Once you have created your CSV file, select the data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload your CSV file from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

Locate and select your file and click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin imports your data from the CSV file and displays it using the graph/chart type chosen …

Upload CSV File From The Web

To learn how to create, save and publish data to a Visualizer chart or graph using Google Spreadsheet, go here:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

After importing the data, make sure that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the correct data), and click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type you’ve selected, the plugin displays various customization options …

Visualizer gives you complete control over your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, including:

• General Settings – Configure chart title settings, font styles, tooltip, and legend.
• Pie Settings – Create 3D pie charts, draw slices counterclockwise, set the text content displayed on the slice, create a “donut” pie chart, rotate the chart’s “start” angle and set the slice border color.
• Residue Settings – Set the ‘Visibility Threshold’ (the slice relative part, below which a slice will not show individually.), ‘Residual Slice Label’ (the label for the combination slice that holds all slices below slice visibility threshold, e.g. “Other”), and ‘Residue Slice Color’.
• Slice Settings – Customize the ‘Slice Offset’ (how far to separate a slice from the rest of the pie), and ‘Slice Color’.
• Layout & Chart Area – Configure the layout (total size of chart) including the width and height of the chart as a number of percentage, background color for the main area of the chart and the chart border width and color, and the placement and size of the chart area (where the chart itself is drawn, excluding axis and legends).

Once you are happy with the way your graph or chart appears, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

The graph or chart will be added to your Visualizer ‘Library’ …

Note that each new element is given a unique ID displayed in a shortcode. As you will see in just a moment, this lets you easily insert graphs and charts into your content …

Graphs and charts added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by type …

After adding an element to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, duplicate it, or trash it …

Visualizer Usage

After creating a new chart or graph and adding it to the Visualizer Library, it’s simple to add it to a page or post.

First, create a new post or page (or open an existing one) …

Next, place your mouse cursor where you want to insert your visual element into the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the graph or chart you want to insert into your content and click the “insert” icon …

This will place a shortcode for the element into your content …

After you have added your item, click on Publish to publish (or update) your page or post …

After updating the page, click ‘View post’ to see the end result …

Your post or page should display the item in the location where you have added the shortcode …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive charts and graphs for mobile browsers …

As you can see, Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can modify your data and the changes will automatically be reflected wherever you have inserted your charts, graphs, comparison bars , etc. in your website. This makes managing dynamic chart information in WordPress very efficient.

The plugin developers have created a series of tutorials you can refer to for ways to edit, customize and use Visualizer.

For additional tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, visit the website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to insert appealing and interactive pie charts and graphs into WordPress.

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